A Night of First Time Feature Winners

Friday, July 14th’s racing action was anything but the ordinary. OSP had two new feature winners, Buddy Jacoby in the O.C. Welch Mini Stocks and Grady McElhaney in the Four Star Security 440’s, and then there was Pastor Doug McCart in the 6th Annual Faster Pastor event taking home his first Victory.

The 6th Annual Faster Pastor Race presented by Coca-Cola had a dozen local pastor’s signed up for the event but only ten were able to start the feature. Pastor Alfred Banks of Daniel Baptist in Richmond Hill (also the track chaplain) was unable to attend for health reasons and Pastor Sean Faircloth of Living Faith of God in Guyton was also unable to attend the event.

Returning Pastor’s were Pastor Rick Rushing of Goshen Methodist in Rincon (3 previous wins) and Pastor Doug McCart of First Baptist Church of Brooklet both have competed in the previous five Pastor races. Pastor Tom Osborne of Friendship Baptist in Statesboro had competed in the three previous races and Pastor Bill Black of Riverside in Savannah the previous two events and went on to win those two races.

Competing in their second Faster Pastor race were Pastor Eric Hayes of Baptist Church at Ebenezer and Deacon Ryan Edenfield of Fellowship Assembly of God in Garden City. Newcomers to the event were Pastor Michael Beck of Maranatha Assembly of God in Rincon, Pastor Kathy Israel-McLeod (the first female Pastor) of Woodlawn Methodist in Garden City, Pastor Buck Ormston of New Life Christian in Rincon and Pastor Storman Glass or Corner Stone in Statesboro.

The Pastor’s raced in Southern Racing Supplies Pure Stocks furnished by drivers who compete every Friday night at OSP with the exception of the car driven by Pastor Osborne who drove the #57 of JC Heerema who has been in retirement for the past two season’s, “My car has been in all the previous Pastor’s events and I wouldn’t have missed this one” said Heerema.

It was an exciting race from green to checker, with Pastor Doug McCart taking the checker flag, “I knew I had a fast car after hot laps” said McCart and thanked Buster Kleckley and Trey Youmans who supplied the car after putting a new motor in it this week so it would be ready for the Faster Pastor event. Rounding out the top five were 2nd Pastor Black, 3rd Pastor Osborne, 4th, Pastor Glass, 5th Deacon Edenfield.

The O.C. Welch Mini Stocks had lots of action with Guyton’s Buddy Jacoby taking home the win, his first feature victory in four years of racing. In victory lane Jacoby thanked Randall Wegmann for racing him clean and was congratulated on many of the other mini stock drivers. Points leader Josh Carter finished 10th after having to pull into the pits on lap two with transmission troubles.

In the Four Star Security 440’s it was Grady McElhaney of Ridgeland who took home his first victory. The rookie driver was able to hold off Savannah’s Brian Balcom who finished 2nd and point’s leader Danny Harrington of Guyton who finished 3rd.

It was Donald Norby of Midway in Victory lane for the Love’s Seafood Street Stocks and Robert Diekemper was the feature winner in the Coca-Cola Late Models. Norby still has the points lead in the street stocks and Diekemper being fourth in the late model points with only 33 points separating third and fourth.

This Friday (July 21st) the NASCAR Dodge Weekly Series returns to Oglethorpe Speedway Park with gates opening at 6pm and racing at 8pm. Anderson Chrysler of Statesboro presents Friday’s races along with a special “Boo Koo Challenge” race for the OSP Street Stocks vs. the Swainsboro Super Streets paying $1000 to the winning driver. If that’s not enough the Georgia Army National guard will have Greg Biffle’s #16 Ford on display.